Men's Grooming

Men's grooming ideals have varied considerably over the centuries. For example, if you lived in ancient Egypt, you would use plenty of red ochre, while the fashion trend in Elizabethan England was completely the opposite, with ultra-pale and powdered skin being the ideal.

Today there's a booming market for men's grooming products and consumers face a barrage of choices. Probably the most important of the modern trends in men's grooming is the attention given to skin care, particularly facial skin and the removal of body hair.

The basic ingredient of good grooming is cleanliness. The old-fashioned bar of soap may be too strong and leave your skin as dry as the Sahara, so use a specially designed cleanser that is strong enough to do the job, but is gentle enough to use every day.

After the cleansing, you may need to use an exfoliating product a couple  times a week to get rid of dead skin cells. Don't forget to apply moisturiser after showering and shaving, to ease irritated skin. 

Speaking of shaving, the trend nowadays is for less body and facial hair. There are several hair removal methods such as waxing, tweezing, shaving, electrolysis or even laser treatment, but which one suits you best?

Waxing has the benefit of not being permanent and can be used on large areas, so if the trends change back to a hairy body as the ideal, you've not burned your boats. But it can be painful!

Electrolysis is expensive but less painful. It is also more or less permanent, but because it needs to be carried out for each individual hair follicle, it is time consuming, so it's best saved for small areas, such as eyebrows.

Laser treatment is even more expensive and although permanent, the treatment really only works well on men with fair skin and dark hair. That leaves us with a couple of alternatives - tweezing or shaving. Tweezing takes time and patience and is not pain free, while shaving can be performed with an electric razor. Just bear in mind that shaving can lead to skin irritation and razor burn.

So, you've cleaned you skin and removed that unwanted body hair. Now you can apply the final touch - cologne.

Cologne was developed by an Italian living in Cologne, who thought that his new perfume reminded him of a spring morning; he named it after his new hometown. It is a mixture of diluted ethanol containing essential citrus oils or sometimes, lavender or jasmine.

Washed, trimmed, shaved and anointed with cologne, it's time to present your best face to the world. Good luck!